Quiver & Quill

Many of the countries that censor the internet are among those with the highest text messaging participation. With text messaging’s recent role in inciting Australian race riots and galvanizing Chinese peasants, is it any less potent a resource? Perhaps the countries that interpret it as benign view it as their own communication tool, unlike the internet, often perceived as a tool of Western cultural imperialism.

I recently read an article that suggests that text messaging challenges cultural and social norms by inspiring problematic relationships between the sexes. Arab Mobile Communication Studies noted that Bluetooth increased interaction between the sexes in Saudi Arabia. Text messaging enabled relationships to develop in a repressive environment in which they may have not otherwise formed. While this may have thrilled the men and women involved, it undermined social and cultural values. The Saudi woman interviewed for the article added, “This form of advanced technology has deprived us of the concept of traditional romance.”

While this crushed a traditional Saudi woman’s romantic ideals, it unleashed new forms of intimacy. The cultural and social challenges stem from people’s abilities to communicate with one another. While fundamentalists perceive this as a threat to their way of life, perhaps it’s apart of the evolution. Have new technologies changed both how we engage and the rules of engagement? Does the channel through which we deliver our messages change their meaning? Does a traditional message become less so when delivered by text message?

Yes. It can become more personal and interactive. It can even change ones experience with religious experience. Let’s take religion and text messaging as our example case study. Consider Rabbi Lawrence of Sydney’s Great Synagogue’s SMS and Power Point in his presentations; Hindus offering their prayers to Ganesh by SMS; Jews SMS’s to the great wall; Catholics in the Philippines Text Mary; Muslims relying on SMS for prayer and fast times. Rabbi Lawrence explains the value proposition of this new technology: “People want religious leadership that isn’t too remote from them.”

It’s ironic that technology, typically viewed as impersonal, has created such intimate connections.

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